Quotes: Meditations on the MOST HIGH

What Kind of God Do YOU Have?

What a God some Christians have! A God who does not know them or care for them in particular; a God who can do no good or harm, except as the laws of nature bring it about in the course of cause and effect; a God not to be reckoned with; a dummy; a figurehead; a God who cannot fulfill His promises, whose love we have to buy with good works and service; a God who bids us go through the motion and mock performance of prayer, when it is understood that it can have no vestige of effect anywhere, except on the one who offers it; a God unfaithful, untrustworthy, malicious; a God who, if He were a man, would not pass for a gentleman! No wonder they do no more for Him! The wonder is they do as much as they do. How densely, deeply ignorant we are of Him, because we “know not the Scriptures, nor the power of God;” no, nor yet His goodness, love, faithfulness; His dread holiness on the one hand, and His tender compassion and grace on the other. For to know Him aright is eternal life; to know Him is to love Him, and to love Him is to serve Him, and to serve Him is peace past all understanding and joy unspeakable and full of glory. –R. H. Boll in Truth and Grace

Why Bother to Know God?

As it would be cruel to an Amazonian tribesman to fly h1m to London, put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square and leave him, as one who knew nothing of English or England, to fend for himself, so we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life in it is a dis- appointing and unpleasant business for those who do not know about God. Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfold, as it were, with no sense of di- rection and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul. –James Packer, Knowing God

How a Third-Grader Sees God

One of God’s main jobs is making people. He makes these to put in the place of the ones that die so there will be enough people to take care of things here on earth. He doesn’t make grownups. Just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way He doesn’t have to take up His valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. He can just leave that up to the mothers and fathers. I think it works out pretty good.

God’s second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on, as some people, like preachers and things, pray other times besides bedtime, and Grandpa and Grandma Dutton pray every time they eat (except snacks). God doesn’t have time to listen to the radio or TV on account of this. As He hears everything, not only prayers, there must be a terrible lot of noise going on in His ears unless He has thought of a way to turn it off. I think we should all be a little quieter.

God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere. Which keeps Him pretty busy. So you shouldn’t go wasting His time asking for things which aren’t important or go over your parents’ head andask for something they said you couldn’t have. – Danny Dutton, quoted in Evangelical Beacon

How Great He Is!

When man began to place satellites weighing a few hundred pounds into space to circle the Earth, the nations gave great acclaim to science and to man’s modern achievement. But did you know that the Earth’s weight is estimated by astronomers to be 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons, and that our great God and Creator spoke it into being, placed it in the sky to whirl at one thousand forty miles per hour, and upholds it and all life upon it? –Clyde Dennis

LORD, Thanks for what YOU are In Spite of what I am!

There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion Him about me (in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself), and quench His determination to bless me. There is certainly great cause for humility in the thought that He sees all the twisted things about me that my fellow-men do not see (and am I glad!), and that He sees more corruption in me than that which I see in myself (which, in all conscience, is enough) There is. however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, He wants me as His friend. and desires to be my friend. and has given His Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose. –James Packer, Knowing God